


Dancing Figures In The Mist

by two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dighton Cabin, Folks in Jen Fanclub... this is for you, Gen, Horror Elements, Ridiculous Badge Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat/pseuds/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat
Summary: They're Dighton Girls.They're stronger than this.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Dancing Figures In The Mist

**Author's Note:**

> this started off as a conversation in jen fanclub that was basically me saying "i headcanon rosie as math illiterate and that's why all the cabin numbers are so off. like she accidentally puts 23 girls in dighton" and we all started running with the idea and then. this happened.

_ Heartfelt wishes... hard to grant _

_ All scribbled down, a winding list. _

_ From the lake, an echoing chant,  _

_ And dancing figures in the mist. _

\- Lumberjanes Vol. 10, Parent's Day

* * *

The Dighton Girls are resilient. 

There are twenty-four of them, in all. Mary-Jane and Lucy and Bee and Tim and Ellie and Bella and Anastasia and Tucker and Dillon and Hayley and Kace and Marquise and Mai-Mai and Xena and Sophie and Lila and Helen and Eliza and Eno and Zoe and Celimene and Ninetta and Max and Guinevere. 

And that’s not even including their counselor.

The first day of camp was an interesting one for most. Everyone knows the Roanokes’ story, about the feral blonde girl and her raccoon and the smaller kid with the unicorn plushie and their counselor almost losing it because she almost lost them. The Zodiacs are also pretty camp-famous, what with Diane turning one of her cabin mates into a deer within the first ten minutes camp was in session (“I swear it was an accident” “That’s what they all say, Diane”) and then the camp director having to make a call to some short, angry-looking woman with too-large spectacles amplifying her dark brown eyes, speaking in cryptic sentences as she tried to un-curse the poor girl. Even the girls from Roswell reported weird noises outside of their cabin, and what they described as “a close encounter” with a small grey humanoid - but then again, the Roswell girls are known for hyperbole, so maybe that was just their idea of a fun story to tell around the campfire one evening. 

The Dighton Girls didn’t have that sort of thing happen to them. There was no strange adventure, no animal encounter, no curses or monsters or other such madness. They got out of their vehicles (twenty of them came by car, two by bus, one by plane, and one just appeared there, said she got lost on a trail and ended up at camp one day and decided to go with it because a voice in her head told her to) and went over to registration and they got their little name tags and they got their cabin name and number and they approached the cabin called Dighton, some wary, some with a spring in their step, all somewhat confused. 

They walked through the door of their cabin, all twenty-four of them (Mary-Jane and Mai-Mai in the front, the bond of hyphens between them making them even stronger leaders, Lucy and Zoe and Xena close behind, Sophie, Lila, Tim, Dillon, Helen, Bee, Ellie, Eno, Ninetta, Max, Guinevere, Marquise, Celimene, Tucker, Hayley, Kace all walking after, backpacks and duffles held close and tight in their arms) to the sight of exactly six bunks, all empty, and one bed with a counselor sitting on it. She was a tall, buff lady, with a tattoo of Texas on her arm and small, round glasses over her eyes. She stood, as if to greet them, but rather than try to explain anything, she stared off into the distance, eyes clouding over green. 

“Hello,” said Guinevere, ever an extrovert. “I’m Guinevere, and I use she/her pronouns. What about you?” 

“Heartfelt wishes… hard to grant, all scribbled down a winding list. From the lake, an echoing chant, and dancing figures in the mist.” She said to them. Then, she sat back down on her bunk. Tucker leaned in to read her name tag. 

“Camila,” she said. “That’s her name. No notes about pronouns. Sorry, Gwen.” 

And then the Dighton Girls all nodded, Guinevere notably disappointed, some setting down their bags on the floor of the cabin, others keeping a tight hold on their things, one - Kace, she likes writing - taking the time to pull out a small notepad and jot down what Camila just said (“Maybe it’s part of some game,” she said, “and we’ll understand it later”) and they looked past Camila, focusing on the three bunks. 

“There’s six beds,” said Celimene, from the back. 

“Six beds,” Marquise agreed. “And how many of us?”

It was quiet for a moment. 

“Someone’ll need to do the counting.” 

Mai-Mai nodded, and got right to it. In the end, there were twenty-four of them: Mary-Jane and Lucy and Bee and Tim and Ellie and Bella and Anastasia and Tucker and Dillon and Hayley and Kace and Marquise and Mai-Mai and Xena and Sophie and Lila and Helen and Eliza and Eno and Zoe and Celimene and Ninetta and Max and Guinevere. 

“There’s no way we’ll all be able to fit,” said Lila. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Who packed extra blankets?” Asked Eno. “Does anyone have sleeping bags?”

“Maybe we should ask our counselor to bring it up with the camp director,” Helen said. “Perhaps there’s been a mistake.” 

“Look at our counselor,” said Ellie, pointing to where Camila was still sitting on the bunk, clipboard in hand, unmoving. “She doesn’t even look fit to have a normal conversation, much less give a talking-to to our camp director.” 

“Where even is the camp director’s cabin?” Asked Xena. “Is there going to be an orientation? Is anyone going to tell us anything?”

“QUIET!!” Shouted Mary-Jane and Mai-Mai in unison, and the room fell silent. 

Mary-Jane and Mai-Mai looked at each other, as if they were already past the need for verbal communication. Mai-Mai simply gave Mary-Jane a nod, and then Mary-Jane spoke, and they gave the Dighton Girls instructions. 

“We’re going to need to work out the math,” she said. “Who here can do math?”

“I can!” A small voice piped up from the back. 

“Come on out, then,” said Mary-Jane, and so the girl, Sophie, came to the front of the group and then Mary-Jane asked for a marker. 

Sophie did the math on the wall of the cabin, no paper at their disposal (other than Kace’s notepad, which she held in an iron grip and deemed too sacred to be sacrificed) so she used one of Bee’s big black Sharpies she’d brought with her, scrawled numbers straight onto the wood, because there were twenty-four girls (not including their counselor) to one cabin, and only three bunks and a bed between them - and the bed was Camila’s, they were certain of that. 

“If we push the bunks together, we might get enough room to squeeze in six girls on each longways, seven if we really pack ‘em in, but even if we can do seven girls to each bunk that’s still three sleeping on the floor, and at that point I’m not sure the bunks would be any more comfortable than the wood, what with having to share with six others. Maybe we could squeeze eight to a bunk, if we really try, at which point we’ll meet our quota, but there’s no way on earth we’d ever actually sleep like that.” 

“So what do you propose?”

Sophie shrugged. “Dunno. I just crunch numbers. I don’t solve problems.” 

Mary-Jane gave her a nod, turning to the other girls. “Who here is good at spatial reasoning and design?”

“I am.” 

“I can do it.” 

They jury-rigged hammocks to make up for the lack of proper beds, gathered pillows and blankets, found a way to make it work. Turned out Eno was really good at tying knots, and Dillon brought extra blankets. They worked together, all twenty-four of them (Kace on schedules, Eno on knots, Sophie on math, Dillon on organizing, Bee on supplies, Mai-Mai and Mary-Jane leading the charge with the others filling in wherever they could, Hayley, Zena, Guinevere, Ellie, Tucker, Anastasia, Helen, Eliza, Zoe, Celimene, Tim, Max, Ninetta, Bella, Lucy, Marquise, Xena) all the while their counselor just sat there, not quite watching, eyes slightly unfocused. 

And so the first day passed, and the Dighton Girls survived. 

* * *

It’s been fifty-six days since then (Hayley started taking count of each time the sun rose and fell on day one, as soon as she heard Tim say that it felt like time was “running funny” and Hayley, determined to prove her on, took note of each sunrise and sunset, only to have the data outsmart her in the end, when she realized on day twenty-seven that she was only supposed to be at camp for two weeks, and upon calling home using a phone quickly borrowed from the Roanoke cabin, realized her moms thought she still had another twelve days left) and the Dighton Girls don’t know what to think of camp, anymore. Sure, they didn’t really know at the start of camp, either. But they all assumed they would’ve caught on, by now. 

It’s morning in the cabin - Anastasia, Tucker, Max, and Mai-Mai are playing cards around one of the tables Zoe made. Zoe was the first one of them to get her Friendship To The Craft badge, then a Keep It Together badge, and then The Wood Chooses The Worker, which she got after building this table for them. It’s steady and strong, enough that multiple girls can sit on it at once and it’ll still stand. It’s a good table. Perfect for playing cards. 

“What’s the game?” Asks Bella, slipping out of her hammock. She’s just finished a book she borrowed from Sophie. It’s raining outside; a good day for reading and playing cards. 

“Uno,” says Max. “But after this round we’re doing Old Maid, then ERS, then Exploding Kittens. Want us to deal you in?”

“Or you can team up with someone,” Mai-Mai offered. “I’m working with Tucker right now.” 

It’s a lazy day; not much to do. Camila’s at some counselor meeting or another, though the Dighton Girls aren’t sure how well that’ll go. Camila isn’t exactly the most talkative person, unless it comes to short-style prophecies, in which case she’s the most prepared individual you could ever meet. They really don’t know what happens at those meetings though, so who knows - maybe the camp director finds the odd poetry helpful. Or maybe Camila actually talks to her (though this seems less and less likely with each passing day).

“I think she’s cursed,” Marquise says one day, while they’re having yet another conversation about Camila. She’s sitting on one of the top bunks, flipping through Kace’s notebook. “There’s no other explanation that makes sense.” 

No on responds, to this. At the beginning of the summer, most of them would have said that sort of idea was crazy. Now, they don’t know what to say. 

* * *

The Dighton Girls don’t go poking their nose into trouble like the Roanokes, and they don’t have anyone supernatural in their cabin like the Zodiacs, and they don’t even have a counselor conspiracy going on; well, not one as interesting as the whole ‘Vanessa’ debacle. They don’t go out into the forest during the day (and certainly never at night) unless they’re out on a nature walk. They’ve never seen dinosaurs (except for that one time the Roanokes caused trouble while they were  _ supposed  _ to have a calming day spent making bracelets). They’re just normal. There are twenty-four of them in all (Mary-Jane, Lucy, Bee, Tim, Ellie, Bella, Anastasia, Tucker, Dillon, Hayley, Kace, Marquise, Mai-Mai, Xena, Sophie, Lila, Helen, Eliza, Eno, Zoe, Celimene, Ninetta, Max, Guinevere), not including their counselor.

They do normal camp thing: Earn badges (they’re on record for most earned as a cabin, most likely due to their large size, but they’ll take it), go canoeing (and  _ they  _ manage to avoid being ‘attacked by sea monsters’, if the Roanokes decide to ever take notes), pitch tents out in the woods (exactly eight tents, not including their counselor’s - Sophie crunched the numbers for them, and she was accurate, as usual), and stay up to late stuffing their faces with marshmallows and telling spooky stories (turns out Ninetta can tell a  _ mean  _ ghost tale, and Helen’s current chubby bunny champion). They don’t uncover conspiracies, they don’t go out past curfew, and they  _ don’t  _ meet up with monsters. 

And still trouble finds them  _ anyway,  _ a persistent thing that seems unable to separate itself from their cabin. Every other day there’s some sort of attack, some danger, and the other girls find it funny but the Dighton Girls don’t. They have to board up the windows to their cabin, one time, cover every crack that could leave it exposed to the outside world. They don’t even know why they have to do this - just that Lucy ran from the tetherball pole to their cabin in record time and the Lucy doesn’t like to run, that she has a terrified look in her eyes and is saying, “Cover it all up, cover everything, don’t look outside.” 

It’s difficult. They’re the Dighton Girls, and they pull through, but there are so many of them. Six girls in a cabin is enough of a challenge for most counselors; try having twenty-four and a counselor who’s never  _ quite  _ there. 

They do try to bring the whole “too-many-girls-to-one-cabin” thing with the camp director at one point. But it’s hard - they don’t have a counselor, after all, and without a counselor, they don’t have a voice. It’s even harder because their counselor  _ is  _ technically present. But she’s not  _ there.  _ A point that few of the other cabins seem to understand. 

Eventually, they send Sophie and Celimene to talk to the camp director about it. Sophie’s good with numbers, and Celimene has a way of making people listen to her. But the camp director doesn’t listen. She chips away at a block of wood until she has a bust of Camila in her hand, and then she passes it to Celimene and pushes the two of them out the door, insisting that Dighton has “just the right amount of girls” and “not to worry” because “everything’s fine!”

Everything’s  _ not  _ fine. Sometimes it feels like the Dighton Girls are the only ones who see it. 

* * *

It’s capture-the-flag again today, but the Dighton Girls are skipping out. Their counselor didn’t register them. They’re sitting, sprawled across bunks and in hammocks and in cuddle piles on the ground, reading and braiding hair and sharpening knives, only twenty-two of them right now (Lila and Tucker are meeting with one of the Roanoke girls to discuss an engineering project, something about a robot that spreads icing on cakes). It’s not long before they’re back through the door, though (the other cabins are playing capture-the-flag, after all, and there’s only so much duty-dodging the Roanoke girl can do) and Lila’s walking over to Camila. 

“How ya doing, Camila?” Asks Lila, offering their counselor a high-five. 

“I saw my best friend in the water by the lake. It was time for summer to end and the monsters to wake.” 

Kace’s eyes widen, and she reaches for her notepad, quick to jot down the latest piece of the puzzle, trying to get it all down before she forgets it.

“When are you going to give that up?” Anastasia’s voice is tired; it’s been a long day. 

Lila shrugs. “Dunno. Guess I’m just hoping she actually responds, one of these days.” 

“She  _ is  _ responding,” Guinevere says. “...in her own way. I mean, maybe it’s the only way she  _ can _ respond.”

They’ve been debating this for forever - why they’re counselor only responds in what sounds like cryptic snippets of poetry. Kace thinks she’s being mind-controlled, or something, but Kace spends too much time talking to that conspiracy theorist girl from Zodiac, and they’re not sure that she’s much good for theories. Xena likes to think that it’s still all some game, the optimist out of the bunch of them. Anastasia (and many of the others, for that matter) think Camila’s just a waste of time. The poems are unsettling; sometimes it’s better not to listen. 

The worst part is that most of the time, they  _ need  _ to listen. 

They don’t want to. 

* * *

When the Roanokes turn the forest against them, it’s the Dighton Girls who adapt first. 

The Dighton Girls watch time stand still. They’re a big enough cabin that even if most of them are frozen, there’s always at least three girls left behind, waiting. At first, that’s all it is - 

Tucker arrives, sprinting from the volleyball courts, telling them that “Oh my sweet Mary Shelley, it’s gotten worse,” at first refusing to elaborate so it’s up to Tim to venture outside, poke around, come back and say “The trees are growing up and fast, our cabin’ll be absorbed by them in minutes if we don’t adapt now,” and just like that the Dighton Girls spring into action, minding Camila where she stands, staring vacantly out the window. 

“Twirl twirl twirl - run fast, run fast. Soon the world will unfurl and so will the past.” 

“Sounds great, Camila,” says Bella, not really listening. Kace, on the other hand, practically steals a pen from Bee and starts frantically scribbling their counselor’s latest cryptic remark.

“Okay girls,” says Mai-Mai, “ready?”

And the Dighton Girls all nod in unison, springing into action moments before the first tree collides with their cabin. 

Because Mary-Jane just got her fist Art-chitect! patch and Zoe’s had The Wood Chooses The Worker forever, and Celimene’s been working towards May The Forge Be With You since the start of summer. Eno secures everything in place with rope (she likes tying things together, making sure everything’s safe - the first to get her All For Knot badge, in record time, too) and Tucker’s standing next to Camila, glancing out the window, giving them updates of the chaos outside with each passing second, and all the girls are running circles around each other, fixing cracks in the wall as they start, getting the cabin in better shape than it’s been in years, patching the ceiling when a branch breaks through, keeping an eye on those strange-looking bubbles that fly past them. 

And then, they’re in the sky, far above the ground. In their cabin, in a tree.

So they adapt. 

They’re Dighton Girls. 

Days pass before their feet touch the ground again. They’re a little fuzzy on the details, but somehow the Roanokes save the day again, and the Dighton Girls are left a little more on edge than before. They decide to take it as a victory, though; they’re alive, aren’t they? Isn’t that extraordinary?

They celebrate by the lake, discussing what’s happened to them. Most of them are swimming. Others aren’t - Kace would much rather spend her time writing away on her notepad, and Eno’s working on one of those friendship bracelets, a big one with lots of different colored string.

“I heard the Roanokes talking about something,” one of them says, Eliza, eyes wide in-between games of Marco Polo. “Said something about a voice.” 

“A voice?”

“Well. The Voice.” Eliza dives under. 

Helen picks up from there. “Yeah. The Voice. Heard the camp director and her girlfriend talking about that, too. Something about counselors acting strange. Going missing.”

“The Voice?” Asks Mary-Jane, at exactly the same moment when Mai-Mai says, “What’s the Voice?”

(Because they do seem to share a brain sometimes, because they’re Dighton Girls and they’re like that now and then). 

Camila only looks at them (well, past them, eyes unfocused and clouded-over green as always) and she tilts her head to the side. 

“She sleeps the leaves away - the sun only getting hotter - as bodies slowly sway.” Camila says. She pauses, as if she’s done, but she can’t be - there’s always one line more. And then there it is, slipping out of her mouth quickly and fiercely. “It’s time to get out of the water.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i might expand upon this concept more later, but i felt like this was a good ending point for the fic right now. all poems/prophecies(?) that camila says are taken from the backs of the lumberjanes volumes. thanks for reading!


End file.
